by Jodie Bailey
“It’s not quite that bad. It’s basically a workday where you don’t work. They’re having a cookout and an auction for some things the community donated and...” His grin widened. “And some of the chain of command are putting themselves on the auction block.”
“To mow people’s yards? Can I bid?”
“Mowing lawns would be less humiliating.”
“I’m intrigued.” After the tension of the past few days, the light banter felt good...real...easy. Boy, how she could use something easy.
“A cream pie to the face in front of the battalion. Highest bidder gets to pitch the pie.” His eyes sparked, like he was ready for whatever bid he got.
“Nice. If you’re involved, can I bid?” Shoving a pie into Lucas’s face would be fun. Except...the way he’d looked at her yesterday... Something about the idea of him vulnerable, even in fun, undid her. Let her know if she was the one smashing the pie, she’d want to be the one tasting it on his lips, too. Her cheeks warmed, and she leaned over to pick imaginary lint off the carpet at her feet. Anything to keep him from seeing he’d overtaken her thoughts.
He seemed oblivious. “Nope. The guys in the battalion get to bid. I’m guessing I’ll go for a pretty low price. It’s the officers who will get the heavy bids.” He grew serious again. “But there’s plenty of social time while we’re eating and messing around. Time enough for you to listen and look and see if anybody tweaks your alarms. You in? Even if it creates the impression among the men that you’re my date?” The last question came out with a hint of uncertainty Lucas didn’t often show.
Kristin ignored it. She could handle idle gossip if it meant proving her brother was innocent. “I’m in.” But that was the whole problem. When it came to Lucas, she might not just be in—she might be in too deep.
FOURTEEN
The air between two hulking brick buildings at Lucas’s battalion on Fort Bragg hummed with scattered conversations and the sounds of children at play. The March day was perfect, with temperatures in the seventies and sunshine brightening the world. Soldiers gathered in clumps, most holding canned soft drinks while waiting for food to be served. Wives and girlfriends huddled around tables chatting, while smaller groups set out food and coordinated the activities. Across the quad, a group of the ranking soldiers had commandeered the large grill, where smoke wafted across the area and carried the scent of searing burgers and browning hot dogs.
Kristin’s stomach rumbled. She didn’t usually dive into a hot dog, but the combination of crisp air and sunshine made it sound like the most amazing delicacy in the world. She sipped a bottle of water and tried to tune in to the conversation at the long white plastic table where Lucas had left her in the care of a few spouses and girlfriends. For a while, they’d skimmed conversations about the weather, the news of the week and the latest restaurants coming to Fayetteville, but then the talk turned to other military bases and new assignments, and her attention had wandered.
To Lucas.
He’d joined the group at the grill about fifty feet away, but he might as well have settled himself in the chair right beside her. His eyes were shielded by black sunglasses, his hair tousled by the breeze, and there was something about watching him in his element, with the men he’d fought beside, that squiggled in her stomach with the kind of hunger a bag of chips and a hamburger weren’t going to satisfy.
A shoulder bumped hers, and one of the women—Rebecca, maybe?—leaned in closer, an inviting smile on her face. “So, how did you talk our reclusive Sergeant Murphy into bringing you with him today?”
“What?” Kristin drew her attention from Lucas, her cheeks warming. How had she let somebody catch her staring? This was stupid. She was supposed to be listening for the man who’d attacked her, for anyone avoiding her or studying her, not surreptitiously watching Lucas. If he was looking her way, it was to see who was reacting to her presence, not for any other reason at all.
“Murphy’s our quiet man.” Rebecca sipped her soda and settled the can gently on the table. “My husband, the guy next to him in the Packers shirt, has been trying to get Lucas to meet somebody since the day he processed into the battalion. Lucas has never taken the chance. He’s the quiet, private type. Keeps to himself. Friendly and all, but happy as a loner. And now, here you are.” She grinned. “I like you.”
“Me? Why?” Rebecca was one of those women who made everybody welcome, who knew how to have a conversation with anyone and who seemed as sweet and perfect as her blond hair and blue eyes implied. Kristin had always wanted to be gentle and able to draw people in, but she’d never quite achieved it. She was too competitive and too private to be the type of butterfly Rebecca appeared to be.
“Why wouldn’t I like you? Fact is, you probably give Lucas a run for his money, push him to get out more. And you seem like the kind of woman who doesn’t take garbage off anybody.” Rebecca smiled again. “You’ll make an awesome army wife.”
Wait. No. Lucas had warned her there’d be talk, and Kristin had been dead certain she could handle it, but marrying her off in the first twenty minutes of the event? If she knew how to get there, she’d walk home before more talk started. “Lucas and I aren’t... An army wife? No.” Kristin waved her hands like a referee waving off a touchdown. “It’s not like that. We’re friends. We run together sometimes, but it’s not—”
“Okay. You keep right on protesting, and I’ll keep right on not believing you.” A call from across the quad caught Rebecca’s attention. “Oops. I have to go and handle something. But don’t fool yourself. You and Murphy are definitely not just friends. It’s written all over both of you. Might as well buy T-shirts and proclaim it to the world.” She was gone, hustling toward a food table before Kristin could protest further.
Her shoulders slumped. Great. Half the people here would probably have her in a wedding dress by the time dessert was finished. She ought to rethink throwing a pie in Lucas’s face. He probably deserved it. Somehow. For something. Even if the speculation wasn’t his fault.
For the first time in a long time, Kristin wished she could be invisible. It seemed as though everyone was staring at her, linking her to Lucas, making them the hot topic of conversation among the groups gathered around the large quad. If she lifted her head at the right time, every eye would probably be on her. Inside, Kristin knew the thoughts were paranoid, but after the past few days, paranoia had almost become her middle name.
Someone slipped into the chair Rebecca had vacated, and Kristin braced herself for more questions and matchmaking before she lifted her head. The new person wasn’t another spouse. It was Specialist Brandon Lacey.
She swallowed hard and looked up to see Lucas watching intently. With Kyle mailing a package to Lacey specifically, he was their prime suspect, and now here he was, bold as all get-out, grinning his youthful grin at her. The only thought in her head was Lucas’s voice, insisting she didn’t know what Lacey was capable of on the battlefield.
“Kristin? Never expected to see you here.” He scrubbed his hand across his close-cropped red hair, and his grin widened. “Thanks again for bringing my mail all the way out here.”
Now was not the time to get lost in her head, wondering what kind of sociopath Brandon Lacey might be, to be so friendly in front of her and, possibly, so devious behind her back. Now was the time to dig, to see if she could somehow trap him into confessing everything.
If only this would all go down easily. She wanted her life back. And she wanted distance from Lucas. But, really...she didn’t.
Kristin shoved away thoughts of Lucas and focused on the young man beside her who could be nothing he seemed, the one link she had to finding the truth, even if the link was rusted and crumbling. “How did your mom like her gift?”
“She won’t be here until this weekend. But if you’ll give me a phone number, I can let you know.”
Kristin fought to
keep her mouth closed. This kid was either in on everything and really, really bold, or he’d let loose with the most misguided pickup line she’d ever heard.
Maybe having everybody think she was with Lucas wasn’t such a bad thing.
Fighting off a shudder, Kristin tried to pull her spinning thoughts together. She wasn’t here to fend off the advances of a kid who might be a killer. She wasn’t here to worry about whether or not people thought she was dating, engaged to or even secretly married to Lucas Murphy. She was here to find the man who’d attacked her so she could prove to Lucas he was wrong and her brother was innocent.
Which meant looking Lacey in the eye. Man, did she hate to give him hope. He was a kid. Hopefully an innocent one. Deep in her heart, she was pulling for him to be a bystander.
Kristin inspected him, trying hard to keep her body language disinterested. He was too scrawny to be the man she’d twice encountered, but he could have been padded for some reason. When she caught his eye, she had no doubt he wasn’t her attacker. Brandon Lacey’s eyes were wide and green, not the narrow darkness of the man intent on harming her. She swallowed her relief, the big sister in her rooting for his innocence. “You have my email. It’s not a big deal.”
“Yeah, sure.” Lacey eased away slightly, his face falling before he could catch the emotion and turn it around. “I’ve got some buddies...over there. I’ve been learning to play old ’80s rock on the violin and told them I’d bring it out today.” He jerked a vague thumb over his shoulder. “Thanks again. See you around.” He wandered over to a group of young soldiers standing near the entrance to one of the buildings.
A group trying not to seem like they were watching. Kristin studied each of them, but the way they milled around, it was hard to tell if they were busy watching her or if they were gawkers at a train wreck, interested in seeing if their buddy crashed and burned.
She turned toward where she’d last seen Lucas, but a line had formed at the grill and he’d vanished. When she angled to check behind her, he was sliding into the seat next to hers, slipping a plate of food in front of her.
“Got you plain chips and a hot dog fully loaded with everything on the table.”
Kristin arched an eyebrow. How did he know what she’d been craving?
“You told me one time how cookouts make you think of football, which makes you think of hot dogs, but you hate hot dogs unless they’re so crammed with chili and mustard you can’t taste the meat.” He winked. “That was you, right?”
“It was. Yeah. Thanks.” She pulled the plate closer and stared at it, wonder coursing through her. He’d remembered something she’d said ages ago? Something she didn’t even remember telling him? That was...
Everything.
Eating what had become a gift from his heart felt a little bit sacrilegious.
“Hey, was I wrong? I can grab you a burger instead if you don’t want—”
“No. Really. This is...perfect.” And she would not cry over a hot dog.
* * *
Kristin leaned back in the metal chair and stared at the white paper plate as she shoved it away. “That did not happen.”
Lucas had to laugh. She’d put away as much food as he had, packing in two hot dogs and two snack bags of chips.
Oh, and a plate of banana pudding.
“I’m going to have to run a whole marathon tomorrow to undo this.”
Lucas laughed and swallowed a cookie, the very last thing he’d eat today. Well, maybe not the very last. Carpenter’s wife had brought an apple pie, and the whole platoon knew how Lucas felt about apple pie. During the deployment, one of the cooks got wind of Lucas’s love of the dessert and made one for his birthday. Lucas had polished off the whole thing.
One of the guys was likely to bring him a slice before this day was over. He ought to think twice before eating it, but Kristin? She had nothing to worry about. She was perfect, and a little bit of indulgence wouldn’t make a bit of difference. “One day won’t hurt you. We’ve got a long run tomorrow anyway. You’ll be fine.”
A long run Lucas looked forward to. In spite of everything, including her rebuttal, he was going on with business as usual between the two of them. Something about their routine was comforting, stable. With everything else going nuts, he needed to do something normal, even if sitting beside her and watching her talk with his buddies and hold her own with the other women was definitely not normal.
Even though the more time he spent with her, the more he wanted this to be his new normal.
Man, he needed space. Fast. Kristin James was getting to him more every second. If he stayed this close, he’d either kiss her or spill the feelings he was trying his level best to ignore. She needed time to heal, and he couldn’t rush that, not without hurting her worse.
He grabbed her paper plates and stacked them on top of his. “Want more? Auction’s gonna start in a little while. You’re going to want a good seat, because those pies are all piled with whipped cream.”
“No more. Please. I need to sit for a minute and hope I don’t pop like a balloon.”
His lip curled as he threw his leg over his chair and backed away. “There’s a terrible picture.”
Her laugh followed him away from the table, layering even more desire into him. Forcing himself to focus on the reasons she was here, Lucas dumped the plates into a large black trash bag and scanned the group. So far, none of the hundred-plus men milling around the area had approached Kristin except for Lacey, and he’d seemed more like a smitten puppy dog than a threat.
Looks could be deceiving, though. Right now Specialist Lacey was on the other side of the quad sawing away on his violin in front of a crowd of soldiers.
Lucas grinned. Half the barracks loved the guy for attempting the opening of an old ’80s rock song on that instrument. The other half had threatened the specialist’s life on more than one occasion. Today, it appeared he’d found a somewhat appreciative audience for a talent that was probably one of a kind.
Pulling his attention from the small group, Lucas scanned the crowd. No one else seemed to be paying any undue attention to Kristin. Once the wives and girlfriends had finished oohing and aahing over the fact Sergeant Murphy had brought a woman to the battalion, nothing else had happened. Other than Lucas getting to see Kristin in a whole new light, this day was working out to be futile.
He refilled his tea and took the long way to the table, stopping to speak to a few soldiers and to listen in on some conversations. Nothing tickled his gut, which was probably busy with the huge lunch he’d packed in.
At the table, Kristin was leaning forward, talking to Chaplain Freemont a couple of seats away. “How do you handle something like that?”
Apparently, the talk had turned serious. Lucas slipped into his seat and tried not to break the flow of whatever held Kristin’s attention.
“Different soldiers handle it different ways. There’s a lot of pain when you lose somebody like that.”
The words seemed to draw her in. Maybe she’d listen to the chaplain, not shut him out the way she’d slammed the door in Lucas’s face when he’d mentioned Jesus yesterday.
The chaplain turned to Rebecca, who was sitting beside Kristin. “I know your husband was there when it happened.”
Rebecca stared at something over Lucas’s shoulder.
He turned. Hoyt Alston, Rebecca’s husband, was mixed in with a group playing football at the open end of the quad. Yeah, it would do Kristin good to hear this story.
“He was. The incident messed with his head the rest of the deployment.” Rebecca turned to the chaplain. “Seeing his buddy there one minute and gone the next when he stepped on an improvised explosive device... Hoyt used to call me, talking about why it wasn’t him when he’d been next in line. How he thought he was supposed to be dead because Trewell had kids and we didn’t. Nothing I could
say got through to him. When he crashed to the bottom, I was pretty sure, one way or another, my husband was coming home in a flag-draped coffin.” She lifted her head, face resolute, and nodded toward Chaplain Freemont. “I’m glad you were there.”
Lucas knew this story. Kristin needed more than freedom from whoever was coming at her now.
“So am I, but I’m not taking credit.” The chaplain leaned back and addressed Kristin, probably the one person at the table who hadn’t heard the story. “I’d gone to one of the combat outposts to do a service for the guys, and when I got back, I couldn’t find my watch. It was on a clip on my belt. Oldest daughter sent it to me right after we went over.”
Somebody on the other side of the table chuckled. Yeah, all the deployed parents were the same way. The little stuff their children sent was more precious than their paychecks. It made Lucas’s heart ache for the child he used to be and the kids he’d thought he never wanted to have.
He refused to glance at Kristin, even though he wanted to. Badly.
“I retraced my steps, because I remembered having it in the Humvee, and went back to the motor pool. Sure enough, it was on the ground by the truck. Figured I’d grab it and head to my rack, but when I bent down, I got a good view of the far corner. There was Sergeant Alston, sitting where nobody could see him except from the angle I was at. We started talking, and before long, it all came out.” He nodded at Rebecca.
She sat with a half smile on her face.
Aware of what was coming next, Lucas knew that smile could only come from God.
“What happened?” Kristin was all in, practically falling out of her seat, watching both the chaplain across from her and Rebecca beside her.
“He was planning to end it.” Rebecca lifted her chin, her focus on Kristin. “He’d seen Trewell die, had a couple of close buddies killed, had witnessed a lot of other things he’ll probably never tell me. He was done. It was all bigger than him. Bigger than us. And along came Chaplain—”
